Ascents in Tasmania by Alex Mougenot

Fun scrambling along the Stegosaurus pitches. Nothing too hard, but worth roping up. If you fall, try to dodge the seal colony.

I felt wholly in the zone on this route. Quietly in tune with myself, the movement, the environment around us. A sharp focus, but 360 degrees of awareness. Perfect harmony, the entire way until the anchors. I'm grateful for such an experience as the last climb of what had been an incredible trip.

What a line! Great climbing the whole way, and so cool to climb on multiple aspects of the pillar! The position on that final arete is sick. Nicely lead Ryan.

Nice!

Bit of poor rock so it's smart to protect the start well incase a face hold breaks. Pleasant warm up along the way.

Flashed using Ryan's beta and draws. Stellar climbing in an even more brilliant position. Looking left and right it's all water, sea birds hunting, seals lazing around and fighting and doing seal things. Then the movement is not physical but flowy if you have your friction arete technique dialled. So good.

Good to revisit this! Spoogy day, but classy climbing. The rock and movement on the second pitch is lovely!

Mega! What a great, long OW line. Worthwhile bringing doubles in larger cam sizes, or other big paraphernalia as taking my larger cams for a walk is a slow process.

Loved this. Did in one pitch. Flashed as I sussed the gear on the rap in

Great problem actually! Slippery feet at the start

Cool. Used a few hand stacks.

Good holds the whole way

Beautiful climbing and finger locks!

Sorting gear and moves.

Cool. Then business is over quickly. Good wires once you find them

Cool wider jamming. Bit offwidthy.

Nice jams!

A fun experience and adventure. It's cool to traverse that part of the world through some rugged country, though the real highlights of this trip for me was the beautiful hike in to Line Valley, walking through otherworldly Labrynth clouded in a mysterious fog, and staying in the old school Pine Valley Hut.

Good learning in assessing tat quality and routefinding. I found the climbing on the 18 pitch to be quite enjoyable. I climbed the left chimney in one long pitch to the summit, with a bit of simulling, after initially climbing the chockstoned-chimney on the right and foreseeing too much rope drag.

Not mega classic for me, but still good fun. The Acropolis looks mega and will be the focus next time!

Poor objective climbing on poor rock, though the INCREDIBLE exposure and position more than make up for this! The most unique route I've been on, and a highly valuable experience!

Lucked out with 5 days of no rain out there, though we awoke at 4:30am on Day 3 (our climbing day) to thick mist which made it harder to find the proper blade, ending up starting up the cliff just past the blade. After scrambling up 120m+ of scrub we realised this, abseiled back down into the gully off the R side of Blade Ridge, and fortunately found a way to mount the ridge from here.

At first climbing I was a bit out of sorts, not having done much of this style climbing for a long time, but after a few pitches I was back and firing to go. Battling drag is key on this for speed - the answer to this is usually running it out with the many aretes and corners to navigate. Man the ridge climbing is incredible! We reached the top of Blade Ridge at 6pm, and made the decision to not continue up the NW Face through the night and figure out the descent at night. Rapped and traversed into the left gully and climbed out back to camp.

Not without loose rock and poor gear, but heavy on exposure and position. Although the NW Face has a greater balance of good climbing movement, good rock, gear, and exposure - in my opinion the pure uniqueness of Blade Ridge trumps this.

After having done the Blade the day previously, Ryan and I were going to walk out. However, it was a blue bird day and the disappointment in not being able to climb the NW Face the day was still fresh in our minds. Mid-packing up at around 9am we decided to drag the trip out and climb the NW Face. Our excitement and satisfaction in the epic climbing of the day before propelled us up the NW Face which does not disappoint. Great position, the remoteness, decent climbing in certain sections, and good rock (apart from the roof traverse) makes this a classic!

What a trip blessed with amazing company, a feeling of being in another world, remoteness, uncannily bluebird weather, and out there climbing. Very thankful.

Downclimbing this was easily the most scared I was the entire trip. That view of the lake below the downclimb is awesome in the true sense of the word, and terrifying. After taking some time to compose myself, it wasn't so bad. Just have to keep moving slow and assuredly. What a crazy hikers route.

Awesome! Fun the whole way

Took my time finding decent gear through the middle. Three flake was a bit weird. May have been better to run it out a bit instead!

Just the first pitch unfortunately, but it was mega fun! Great punchy crux into stellar arete climbing. So much fun!

Low crux was fun and the top position is class

👌👌👌

The moves up the blank arete were ace.

More runout than I was expecting! Good line and cool bolting

Gave it everything I had to the point where I was so pumped gathering chalk in My hand was hard! Ended up getting spat off at the high, thin technical crux before the anchor! Great line that doesn't let up.

Pleasant

FFA. Haha still marvelled at why we climbed this after walking out all this way - but it was definitely worth it at the time, and probably got our eye in on climbing chossy dolerite cracks! Actually quite a fun technical wide-crack affair. Take plenty of bigger cams.

What a rad experience! Everything about this adventure feels like it has catalysed a step up in my climbing - from the big hike-ins and gear shuttle-runs, to the reccying, rapping in, cleaning and then climbing of the face in a committing position. Whilst a far-cry from my original goal of putting up a new sea-to-summit route on the face, I'm still super happy with the adventure we ended up having! Will return to link this to the grassy ledge below, though will need to bring more big gear.

Didn't climb the first pitch clean as I had to lower and retrieve gear as I already used my double #1s and #2s and had 15m of #1/#2 crack to go to the top! Will need triples (or quadruples?) next time. Also had a boogie-board sized rock almost come out of the crack and land on my ropes, though just managed to stop it with my feet before it came out. Spookyyyy.

1st pitch was the standout imo - a sustained corner splitter with few cheat holds on the faces. 2nd pitch had cool moves on great rock off the deck, then a fun, scary, 8m runout to the anchor in up and around a blunt arete (good work Shabbi!). 3rd pitch was megaaa with fantastic climbing up twin/triple corner cracks to the summit on sub-par rock that spiced things up a bit haha.

Bloody brilliant!

Toughhh but sweet as climbing the whole way! Nice spaced bolting too.

Very nice slabbing in the style of an old school adventure. For some reason the runouts took us by surprise when we should have taken note of the date of the FA and been expecting them haha! Loved it. Sorta did a pitch of Japhlion instead of the 3rd pitch then got back on track afterwards

Also - Got lost on the approach and rapped off some random bolts, got our rope stuck, then had to climb some random crack + runout slab on a single half rope to get back to the anchor! Will log it as a new route at some point and see if it has been done before. Wasn't half bad.

One of the best pitches I've done. Hands down.

Just the second pitch to top out NMMNG. Whaaaaat harder than it looked! Bit spoogy and crusty up top, but awesome! Had to dig deep and go full primal to get up thos.

Had to project the start then came down and sent, onsighting from the 3rd bolt up ... Slightly spoiled by the nails bouldery start, but don't let that discourage you as they rest of the slab is amaaaaazing! Very classy slabbing.

Super cool moves! Rock is fairly suspect, but not too bad. Some heeeeavy crimping on this one after the crux, and a sick double Gaston move at the crux unlike anything I've done before. Good learning! Unfortunately no chance to give it a second shot, though it's good to rest my fingers anyway

Toughhhhest 25 ever! Crimpy fiend but a lot of fun. Good moves the whole way that I didn't find straightforward at first.

Used Ryan's beta for the crux. Fun powerful moves as the start, then interesting sandstoney slab to the top.

So good! Rock is slightly fragile but there are so many bolts there's no reason to be scared,! Beautiful delicate slabbing.

Just the third pitch after Yesterday's Hero to get to the Supernaut area. Awesome rock!

A good intro to Ben Lomond without getting into a marathon crack, I reckon. Last pitch was superb (before the choss).

Holy crap was this sustained! Some funky footwork helped me through this! Almost a chimney, but not really haha. Incredible line, and a great finale for my trip.

Unbelievable crack perfection in that first half. I was climbing the top crack, while still laughing in disbelief of how awesome the first section was! I highly recommend this!

Coooool bouldery crux off the deck that I could only just make. Had no endurance for the end, though, after this big day.

This, Yuddy, and Floating have sort of merged in my head now. All I remember is that there were so many little moves that it felt like 30m of climbing, not 15. My brain just about exploded on this, as did the front of my calves on those tensiony slopy footers. Wish we had more of this style back home.

Start was hard, then it layed off a little. Pumpy for the length, like all the routes here it seems.

Spent waaay to long trying to nail the start.Ended up getting all the moves bar 1 or 2. I was totally dumbfounded! Climbs like this make me feel like I need stronger fingies ... Good learning, though, and it was good to take a beating and sit on the rope this trip.

Didn't expect this to turn into a project, but lost all my endurance on crimps after Small But Perfectly Formed. I reaaaaally wanted this bad. Haven't felt that projecting fire for a while.